Gb. Cook, 3-DIMENSIONAL INITIAL DATA FOR THE COLLISION OF 2 BLACK-HOLES .2. QUASI-CIRCULAR ORBITS FOR EQUAL-MASS BLACK-HOLES, Physical review. D. Particles and fields, 50(8), 1994, pp. 5025-5032
The construction of initial-data sets representing binary black-hole c
onfigurations in quasicircular orbits is studied in the context of the
conformal-imaging formalism. An effective-potential approach for loca
ting quasicircular orbits is outlined for the general case of two hole
s of arbitrary size and with arbitrary spins. Such orbits are explicit
ly determined for the case of two equal-sized nonrotating holes, and t
he innermost stable quasicircular orbit is located. The characteristic
s:of this innermost orbit are compared to previous estimates for it, a
nd the entire sequence of quasicircular orbits is compared to results
from the post-Newtonian approximation. Some aspects of the numerical e
volution of such data sets are explored.